SPB Mobile Shell 3D for Android

Edit: I just realise that SPB were a bit cheeky - the same day they send us old-timers this offer by mail, they lowered the price for the Android version anyways. Bad boys
But I added my impressions below, so have a peek further down the page.
Just a tip: if you are interested in SPB 3D shell for Android but find the price a bit steep, you can save 50% if you ever bought Mobile Shell for another OS...even if it's beenb years since you bought it for Symbian or WinMo, you will get it at half price for Android.
If you don't know what Mobile Shell 3D is, shame on you http://spb.com/products/mobileshell/

To get the 50% you need to mail them your old registration details (your old email address should do)

Hey di hi...
Been using SPB's mobile shell for Symbian and WinMo for years.
The SPB Shell 3D is excellent, though it lacks a few features of the SIS and winmo ancestry.
First the negative: The 3D is a bit gimmicky, really. The panel-carousel is something you amaze your dumb-phoned mates with now and again, but I have never, on no OS actually used it. Sliding left/right is much faster imho. Still a nice touch. Having said that, the homescreen folders you can create (a la iOS's apps folder only WAY cooler and more useful) also have a slight 3D-ish relief effect.
Anyhoo, If you think Sense is a nice skin...forget it. Shell 3D takes the best of old Mobile Shell versions, iOS, Bada, Symbian...and puts it into one neat, fast pretty package. It adds some nice and actually useful system tool widgets and the aforementioned homescreen folders - you can drop apps, files, bookmarks, contacts or whatever into the folder, resize and expand them, and the animated effect when you open a folder is almost worth the money.

As with other launchers and UI skins you really need to try and experience it.

And there is a trial version in the Market - I believe it is fully functional for 15 days.

The bad news: on winmo it actually used less RAM than HTC's Sense (on my HTC HD2), but whoa, on Android it takes quite a BIT of resources... I'm currently using Shell 3D on a Sony Ericsson Arc. Without Shell 3D the idle available RAM is around 200-something MB. With Shell 3D running that figure goes down to around 140 MB. It's not like the Arc starts lagging, but I can imagine scenarios where one might want to disable Shell 3D.
Another disadvantage compared to older non-Android versions: no themes (yet), no pro- and lifestyle-layouts (on Symbian and WinMo you can set-up two seperate shells with different shortcuts, widgets, themes, wallpapers etc etc) - just the one layout.
Also missing (unless I'm blind): you cannot back-up your set-up. In older versions you could back-up different set-ups and layouts. Very handy. But I'm sure SPB are working on that.

I might do a full review of SPB Shell 3D very soon, but currently my annoyance with some Arc 'issues' is keeping me from doing it properly.

Anyway - give it a try********** Oh, darn, I just had a peek at SPB's site and the Market - there IS NO trial version?!!! Now that is bad. But some nice pictures and demo videos here on SPB's site.

And another naughty thing: the day they send me an email with the half-price offer for Symbian and winmo users, they lowered the price anyway... that is a bit on the boooh-side of PR, SPB

"Not quite there yet" is a bit harsh. As I said, older OSs have more features and look less polished. Plus: the Symbian and WinMo versions are more than 2x the price.
If you know someone who has it, you should be able to 'try' it - I bought it for an Acer Liquid with a Vf sim and then moved the apk to the Arc with a different SIM and different gmail account and it's running fine On both.